After our trip to Colca Canyon we were both feeling quite tired and as I was getting a bit behind with this blog and had a lot of new photos to sort out I spent most of the 25th just relaxing at Luz´s parents house while Luz, Matthew and her mother went out shopping.
We had planned to visit the jungle whilst we were here in Peru this time and Luz was going to look for a suitable trip for us while she was in the centre. We knew from previous research that it would probably turn out to be a lot more expensive to book an all-inclusive trip from Arequipa or Cuzco so we decided that the best approach would be to make our own way to Puerto Maldonado, the capital of the Madre de Dios district in the heart of the southern part of the Peruvian Amazonian rain-forest, and see what we could find once we got there.
Luz managed to find a reasonable return flight to Puerto Maldonado that would leave at around 11:30am on the following Monday, the 29th and return on Friday the 3rd October. That would give us around 5 days which should be enough for a good trip into the jungle.
We then needed to find a way to get from Arequipa to Cuzco and back around the above dates. Flights would probably be a bit too expensive and difficult to find around the required dates so we decided to use the overnight bus which we had also used on our previous visit to Cuzco in 2006. It takes around 10 hours and is along pretty rough and dodgy mountain road and I can never sleep during the journey but at least they were reasonably cheap.
Luz also bought some bits and pieces (clothes, medicine, etc) which would probably come in useful during our jungle trip.
The next day, Friday, I was feeling quite energetic and decided to go for a short jog around the La Campiña district. The district, is quite hilly and while it was still very early (around 7am) and hadn´t fully warmed up yet the altitude (around 2500m) meant that I found running up some of the small hills quite exhausting and had to walk for short periods. I also got a few strange looks from some of the local residents who were getting ready for school or work. I also encountered another group of what appeared to be stray neighbourhood dogs but luckily again managed to escape in one piece.
My jog took me up to the highest point in La Campiña which overlooks the Rio Socabaya valley and gives very good views over much of Arequipa and its surroundings. This small hill also contained a holy shrine containing a statue of Christ on the cross which is used in local religious ceremonies.
Whilst travelling through the centre of Arequipa we had noticed that a new, and very large branch of the Plaza Vea supermarket had recently opened here so we decided to pay it a visit. It contained just about everything - food, clothes, toys, electrical equipment and even clothes for pets! A lot of food seemed to be imported from the US, as well as the usual Peruvian stuff, and so it was possible to buy various new and tasty types biscuits, sweets and other foods that just aren´t available in Europe, an advantage which we gladly took.
Later that afternoon Luz´s grandmother came round in order to prepare the day´s meal, cuy (guinea pig). This was the 2nd time I would have tasted the dish as she had also cooked it for us on our previous visit and I had quite enjoyed it. As I did this time also, although my cuy now came without a head, as opposed to the previous one I ate. The flesh of cuy tastes rather like rabbit and although it can be a bit fiddly to eat with many small bones its an enjoyable meal.
This time Luz´s mother managed to find the tiny ear-bone shaped like a dog which is supposed to bring good luck to whoever finds it. Once it is found it can be used in a drinking game where it is placed into someone´s glass which must then be drank until empty. If the bone is swallowed along with the drink the drinker can make a wish. If not the glass must be refilled and the process repeated until the bone has disappeared down the throat. This game was often practised by the Incas and still is today in some rural parts of Peru and the drink involved is usually a strongly alcoholic version of the corn beer called Chicha which meant that the drinker would usually get very drunk by the time the bone was swallowed. Luckily our version of chicha was non alcoholic but I still drank enough of it to give me a bad stomach later that evening. And I still never managed to swallow it and in the end gave up and passed it on to Luz and also didn´t manage to complete the task.
On Friday evening we ventured out into the centre of Arequipa to sample (for me the 1st time, for Luz certainly not) its nightlife. At this time of year there are not so many tourists around but there were many locals enjoying a Friday night out and there are many good bars, restaurants and clubs, especially along Calle San Francisco which is the part we visited. The first bar we went to was Déjà Vu. This bar\club had two floors, each playing different types of music. The bottom floor was more like a bar and played a selection of trance music whilst upstairs it was more dance type music with an open balcony area which looked out over the street below. It also serves a selection of meals and shows English language movies at 8pm every evening.
The second place we visited was the Forum Rock Cafe, a huge building comprised various different bars, restaurants and a jungle-themed nightclub. Upstairs is a small area where you can play pool and we attempted to do this only to meet a rather drunken Peruvian guy who invited us to join him in a game. It later turned out that he hadn´t actually paid for the table and so shouldn´t have been playing so when he disappeared to the toilet we also disappeared, to the nearby bar whose walls was lined with various different Rock memorabilia.
We then made our way downstairs to the jungle nightclub (10 sols entrance fee) which was pretty empty when we first entered (at around 10pm) but which later filled up with a lot of people (the vast majority of which were locals) and played a selection of mostly Latino music with a few songs that I also knew. We had an enjoyable evening amongst the jungle vegetation and walkways and left at around 2:30am for a taxi home.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
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